Jeremy Clarkson, a British TV star, wrote an editorial describing privacy activism as “palaver,” and just to prove how safe we all are, included his bank account number. Soon afterwards someone snagged £500 from the Top Gear host’s account. “I was wrong and I have been punished for my mistake,” the presenter later told reporters. Needless to say, you should never share your bank account information with anyone who doesn’t need it, for instance, millions of faceless readers.

This is great! Any of
-your legislators
-credit report agency flaks
-bank people
who do not want to improve privacy laws and impose greater penalties for sloppy banks and credit agencies because there is no problem should prove it by publishing their social security number and bank account numbers.

@MonkeySeeMonkeyDo: Uhmmm, you do realize that JC *is* Top Gear, right ? The other presenters are hangers-on and follow his lead. There’s probably a few million fans who would also disagree with your opinion, entitled as you are to have it.

Sounds like a typical JC stunt. He’s SO opinionated. In the America road trip show, the crew obviously went out of their way to portray America in the worst possible light just because he’s rabidly anti-American. Top Gear still rocks, tho.

This reminds me of the CEO of LifeLock (Todd Davis) and his commercial for the company. He believes in his business so much that he has plastered his SSN on their advertisements. (His SSN is: 457-55-5462 and his website and how his business works is: [www.lifelock.com] )

Hmmm — last week the WSJ had an ad for some privacy service which included the ss # of the president of the company, saying “this is how good our service is. I can publish my actual Social Security number and not be concerned.” Wonder how that will turn out? (Wish I remembered the name of the company; anyone know?)

The thing about Jeremy “Jezza” Clarkson is that he’s a loud, impatient Britt with a dicky hip, a busted back, a lead foot and the tendency to drive cars while yelling “POOWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRR!!!” He’s an egotistical adrenaline junkie, who believes the best thing to quit smoking is to drive a Koenesegg CCX (900 bhp on biofuel) and that the 254 MPH top speed of the Bugatti Veyron is the best out there because you can do it in the comfortable lap of luxury.

Of course, that’s not to say he has his faults that he does own up to. This is one of many. Unfortunately for him, it took 500 quid to do it — a donation to a Diabetes center.

Anyway, if you’re intrested in Top Gear, there’s three sites. BBC’s own BBC 2 Top Gear site (www.bbc.co.uk/topgear), BBC Magazines’ Top Gear (www.topgear.com), and the Final Gear fansite (www.finalgear.com).

JIM (THE CANUCK ONE): Oh, Jim, that is even worse. I love and eat up every second of QI, and as soon as I hear Clarkson is on the panel, I feel deflated. Stephen is far too kind to him. I wish he’d mock him kindly yet mercilessly the way he does some of his other thick guests.

It’s a shame they only got him for the 500 pounds. Because that is some amazing ignorance to think that you could just throw your bank info out there and think that no one would act on it. The guys seems to be an ignorant knob (at least with financial privacy/protection).

@shan6: There are a few “demo” SSNs used for such purposes as well as the 555 telephone exchange that’s used for phone numbers shown in TV/movies/books. There are a few 555 numbers that actually work like the universal 555-1212 information number, but mostly they’re all nonfunctional. There are also the “reserved” demo domains example.[com|net|org].

clarkson is a god among men. He does stupid things all the time, and usually acknowledges the stupidity of them (driving through mississippi in an 80s iroc-z with ‘nascar is rubbish’ painted on it comes to mind).

Watch the show, you’ll understand.

For the record, he was voted the 4th funniest person in the history of Britain.

The 500 was just to teach him a lesson the money wasn’t just taken form his account but it was donated to the British Diabetic Association. So in the end his arrogance at least had some positive results.

I love his response to the whole mess. “I was wrong and i have been punished.”